We all know Photoshop, as the industry standard, is a great piece of image editing software, but its subscription model is pricey. It costs €24.59 per month on an annual basis. This is worth it – and essential – if you are a professional, but there are some decent alternatives if you want features beyond what Apple Photos or Windows Paint are capable of without breaking the bank.
Pixelmator Pro is a good choice in this regard, with powerful image-editing tools and a wallet-friendly €39.99 once-off payment. This Mac-only app has an excellent machine-learning feature called ML Super Resolution: run it on poorer quality images to eke out a higher resolution image that minimises loss of sharpness. It can’t work miracles but considerably lessens pixelation upon enlargement.
As with Photoshop, there is a soft proofing feature to get an idea of how your final image will look in print (as opposed to on screen).
There are web-friendly features on the toolbar for quick export of images in various formats and with the options to both convert to sRGB (optimal display for web) and advanced compression to shrink files as small as possible.
The usual suspects for retouching photos are also here: automatically straightening lop-sided snaps, brightening dark backgrounds, removing blemishes, etc. I’d imagine (once you take advantage of the free tutorials on the Pixelmator blog) you could use it for editing birthday, wedding or baby pics suitable for framing.
